Touch the Sound

2004 "A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie"
7.2| 1h39m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 10 September 2004 Released
Producted By: Filmquadrat
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A documentary which explores the connections among sound, rhythm, time, and the body by following percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who is nearly deaf.

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Cast

Director

Thomas Riedelsheimer

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Filmquadrat

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Touch the Sound Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Steineded How sad is this?
Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Python Hyena Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie (2004): Dir: Thomas Riedelsheimer / Featuring: Evelyn Glennie, Fred Frith, Jason the Fogmaster, Roger Glennie: Compelling idea for a documentary about the mystery of sound and its affect on people. Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer who introduces Evelyn Glennie as an almost deaf musician who experiences life through sound. Traveling around the world she visits schools where she demonstrates a whole new way to relate to sound. She instructs one student to strike a drum while her hand and arm feels the vibration. She travels to odd locations such as a farm where ruins prospect much life for sound with various objects. Glennie herself is an expressive sort who cannot always explain her feelings and reactions to various sounds yet her face mirrors her pleasure in discovering new sound and variations. She is the main human focus of the film while others are more brief. This is intriguing but also somewhat boring as she spends endless time usually in one place too long as if beating us over the head with its theme over and over would get the word out about this film. Viewers can share in her joy and enthusiasm but not with the film that propelled from it. The result is an intriguing and curious film that often drags through long segments that seem to go on forever in order to touch our senses to sound. Score: 5 ½ / 10
chuck-526 This film is a wonderful "experience", sort of like a very extended music video, or something you'd get from a VJ (Video Jockey, remember that term?). In spirit it reminded me of Fantasia. It also reminded me of those 60's "happenings", except there's no need to drop acid here.The images are all "realistic" things you might see with your own eyes (no microscopic nor aerial nor computer-generated nor artificial images). At the same time, they're arresting images: things you've never seen before, or a different way of looking at something, or deep meditations on an everyday event. The camera relentlessly moves back and forth between indoors and outdoors, guided by continuity of themes, people, and sound. Match cuts abound. Just a couple examples: We watch a feather falling through the air, then at the moment of impact the image changes to ripples spreading over the surface of a pond. We watch traffic crossing a bridge as the bridge towers that look like columns are emphasized, then the image changes to different columns that hold up the roof of a large building. The audio is mostly either percussion performances or "found sound" (much of the rest is philosophizing), sometimes synced with the images and sometimes independent. Some of the performances are fairly conventional (except on a higher plane than usual), others are improvisational and highly experimental. Several are so far off the beaten track they seem to call up the context of "modern art".Often a theme jumps back and forth from audio to video to audio to video to audio. And sometimes images get pretty imaginative: for example heat waves making buildings in the distance shimmer is reminiscent of water, so next we see a fisherman casting, then we see buildings with greatly exaggerated shimmering as though looking through actual water. Rather imaginative, since the last time we could get our bearings we were in the middle of a grid of streets. It's obvious there was extensive editing and not everything is presented in chronological order: Evelyn's hair may be blond, then red in the next scene, then blond again in the scene after that, and so on. In one sense deafness is the foundation. But in another sense deafness is largely irrelevant. If I remember right, there's one long scene, another short scene, some scattered images, and some scattered bits of dialog that refer to deafness, or only make sense with deafness as a background, Maybe it totals something like 3% of the screen time. But that's it. It seems possible that a sufficiently obtuse viewer could watch the whole thing and never realize Evelyn Glennie is deaf. If you're looking for an uplifting moralistic tale about surmounting handicaps, this film is beyond that - it just assumes that as given without ever talking about it.At first when I read "one of the best percussionists in the world", I thought "yeah right, why have I never heard of this person?" But after listening all the way through the film, my dubiousness vanished. Not everything good is in the U.S. Even if you usually find percussion to be just "background noise" or "accompaniment", the musicality here is undeniable. It's obvious the percussionists listen intently and watch each other and adjust, reminiscent of improvisational jazz. I suspect if seen with enough understanding, this documentary explores a whole philosophy in a coherent way. (I don't really know if that's what the filmmaker intended or not.) What I do know is I didn't see it that way ...and I don't care (and maybe it isn't that way anyway:-). If you're waiting for "something to happen" or "some profound insight", you quite likely will find the film unbearably tedious and slow. It doesn't seem to me to welcome being approached that way.
Seamus2829 After Thomas Riedelsheimer turned the film going public on it's ear with his portrait of Andy Goldsworthy in 'Rivers & Tides:Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time',he next turned his camera lens on Evelyn Glennie, a classically trained pianist,who lost something like 80% of her hearing at an early age. This would have swayed most "would be" musicians away from music,but not Glennie. She managed to switch from piano studies to percussion,as percussion instruments are louder than the piano. As a result,Evelyn Glennie has become one of the most respected (and busy) musicians around. There is a bounty of footage of her rehearsing for various performances,as well as film footage of her recording a CD with Fred Frith (who also contributed original music for 'Rivers & Tides'). The end results is a well crafted documentary that like Rivers & Tides is breath taking to look at,as well as to listen to. This film opened to both praise,as well as scorn (mostly from the hearing impaired community,who's main complaint was that the film had no subtitles to translate the spoken text). Still,a film to seek out. I eagerly await any & all future offerings by Thomas Riedelsheimer (and would also love to see any of his older films,as well). As is with 'Rivers & Tides',no MPAA rating,but nothing to offend anybody (unless one is adverse to new & experimental musics)
Paul_Deane "Touch the Sound" is beautiful in the same way the wind-drifting plastic bag of "American Beauty" is beautiful. It is simple and profound, and even though it is right in front of us, we somehow cannot manage to see it. This movie is an experience, not in the sense of a journey, but rather, something you must feel in order to connect with. Movies like this keep us in touch.Everything has sound, and thus for Evelyn, everything is an instrument. No exceptions. Cans, bottles, rope, sections of aluminum, a snare drum, the sidewalk…everything. Maybe the only thing more impressive than her actual musical abilities is the open-mindedness of the people who watch her play these obscure instruments. The film takes us from Japan to New York to England to Santa Cruz, where we find a diverse group of cultures united by music. Or maybe it is something deeper than that."We need to eat, we need to sleep, and we need music." This is Evelyn's philosophy, one which she most certainly lives by. Evelyn is a woman who plays her percussion instruments barefooted in order to feel the vibrations they cast, so it is no stretch to say she quiet literally has a feel for what she is doing. She is a wonderful musician, who makes such a connection with her music that it is as if the music is not being heard through her ear, but rather resounding throughout her body.The most engaging moments in the film are found through the improvisations performed by Evelyn and fellow musician Fred Firth, who she has never met before. They create the soundtrack of the film through their willingness to experiment and explore with any and every combination of variances on traditional guitars and percussion instruments.Although I very much enjoyed the film, I did find that there were a few too many visual "sounds" where as a viewer I found the underlying message to be too apparent. Nevertheless, "Touch the Sound" is worth a watch, even if you are not a musician; its is simple, enjoyable and leaves us with a sense of inner harmony.